The Walking Dead

Hey duelists! It’s been a while since my last article and a lot has been happening in the dueling world in the meantime. Since then, my only major event has been ARG Richmond where I conceded to Pat Hoban in the last round because I had no chance of making top 16 myself. Today I’m going to share the deck I played at the recent Philadelphia Regional where I didn’t do as well as I would have liked; but I really enjoyed the deck. As you can probably tell by the title, I’ve been playing Zombies as a side-deck ever since the announcement of [ccProd]Kuribandit[/ccProd] and with the arrival of [ccProd]Soul Charge[/ccProd], it morphed from a Rank 4 control build to a very explosive Synchro deck. Here’s the list:

[ccDeck="Main Deck"]

3 Destiny Hero - Malicious

3 Plaguespreader Zombie

3 Mezuki

3 Dark Grepher

2 Kuribandit

2 Zombie Master

2 Armageddon Knight

2 Kagetokage

1 Dark Armed Dragon

3 Soul Charge

3 Upstart Goblin

2 Book of Life

1 Allure of Darkness

1 Foolish Burial

1 Reinforcement of the Army

1 Book of Moon

2 Vanity’s Emptiness

2 Fiendish Chain

1 Solemn Warning

1 Bottomless Trap Hole

1 Torrential Tribute[/ccDeck]

[ccDeck="Extra Deck"]

1 Revived King Ha Des

1 Stardust Dragon

1 Stardust Spark Dragon

1 Scrap Dragon

1 Crimson Blader

1 Dark End Dragon

1 Void Ogre Dragon

1 Beelze of the Diabolic Dragons

1 Abyss Dweller

2 Lavalval Chain

1 Number 66: Master Key Beetle

2 Evilswarm Exciton Knight

1 Number 101: Silent Honor ARK[/ccDeck]

As you can see this deck is very focused on going off on the first turn of the duel. With a strong focus on getting Malicious to the graveyard early you can get 2 level 8 synchros onto the field with ease. This deck also has access to some unique synchros that are really strong such as Void Ogre and Beelze. If you draw Vanity’s Emptiness and put Void Ogre and Stardust Spark Dragon along side it you are almost assured to win. The basic premise of the deck is to get Malicious and Plaguespreader into the graveyard combined with either a Soul Charge or a Mezuki in graveyard.

One common opening to achieve this is Dark Grepher, Malicious or Plaguespreader, and Soul Charge. You would summon Dark Grepher and activate his effect to discard the Malicious or Plaguespreader and send whichever one you didn’t discard. Now you would either play Soul Charge for an easy level 8 and follow it up with Plaguespreader’s effect to make a 2nd level 8. Another opening hand that’s similar is Dark Grepher, Kagetokage, and either Malicious or Plaguespreader.You would summon Grepher and use Kagetokage on summon and after using Dark Grepher’s effect you would overlay the Dark Grepher and Kagetokage for Lavalval Chain to send Mezuki and make the 2 level 8 synchros from there. This is just a few of several different openings that would result in 2 level 8 synchros.

If you don’t open one of the combos first turn you’re play would generally be to get Plaguespreader to graveyard if you don’t already have access to him. The deck’s grind-game is fairly good with a strong base to make rank 4’s along with trap cards to fend off your opponent’s advances. Now onto the deck’s weakness and shortcomings. The main problem with this deck is you need to draw traps to protect your set up because if your initial field is broken you have no way to come back outside of trap cards. One way to help mitigate this is to bring your synchros out in defense mode to avoid Number 101: Silent Honor ARK. Another big problem that the deck has is hand traps. [ccProd]Maxx “C”[/ccProd] is really strong at certain points in the game and [ccProd]D.D. Crow[/ccProd] is absolutely devastating at most points. Unfortunately the best thing you can do for this is to side [ccProd]Debunk[/ccProd] but siding Debunk for just hand traps isn’t worth it.

With the upcoming arrival of Primal Origins this deck will have to adapt to the incoming Artifact and Sylvan decks. I do feel as this deck will remain at the same level it is now which is semi-competitive. It’s a great deck choice if you’re looking for something different and fun that abuses Soul Charge that can also beat the top decks. That’s it for now, but be sure to click the picture below to check out the details for the next Circuit Series in Washington DC on May 31st- June 1st!

Discussion

My friend just barely missed on a day 2 at ycs Chicago with a similar deck and I have to vouch for zombies being a very real deck to consider as a competitive option. Although I have a question of as to why you chose to not run goblin zombie

Steffan Beck Røn

Hi there! Grats from denmark for playing an awesome deck 😛 but i would like to add my some ideas and techs of mine 🙂 first i like the Dark Grepher thing, but i personally think that A-knight needs to go. i use 2 Mathematician, since it can send both Plaguespreader and mezuki, depending of what you need 🙂 plus maybe 1 card, anyway. i run 2 plague not 3, dont feel the need for the last one. since i have played zombies for a long time, i like to run 2 Goblin zombie. i think the deck is all about the grind/setup game and know the right time to go off. depends on your match up. i dont run Soul Charge myself, cuz i dont have them and havent tested it aswell. I run a Dragon’s mirror(for lategame) and a polymerization(to send mezuki and Plague to grave from hand + get a 3000 beater)..With the techs i run in my zombie deck i think the deck is getting the speed it have needed for so long and get finally get kick some ass 🙂 lets me know what you think of my ideas, since i allways like to learn and hear from other players 🙂